EU Demands More Concessions From Google Over Antitrust

[engine]

Google must do more to allay concerns that it is blocking competitors in web search results, the EU's antitrust chief said on Wednesday, after rivals criticized concessions it has offered as being inadequate.EU Demands More Concessions From google Over Antitrust [uk.reuters.com]

"I concluded that the proposals that Google sent to us are not enough to overcome our concerns," European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told a news conference on Wednesday, adding that he has asked Google to present better proposals.

[Whitey]

Huge fine

Those areas of concern, first highlighted in 2010, were:

how Google favours its own services in its search results
how it displays content from other websites
how it manages adverts appearing next to search results
how its actions affect marketers' ability to buy adverts through rival networks
On advertising, competitors have complained that it is too difficult to place ads on Google's Ad service using third-party software.

Both sides of the dispute have said they are eager to reach a settlement, but if necessary, the commission could formally file a case - leaving Google open to the prospect of being fined 10% of its annual revenue. [bbc.co.uk...]
That's a big fine. It'll be interesting how this plays out.

[FranticFish]

From the BBC article, the claim from one study is that "as many as one in five of the 1,888 people studied clicked on Google's commercial web services, compared to one in 200 clicking on its rivals."

10% of revenue - that sort of money could be used to develop an open source truly free alternative to Google. It'll never happen but boy would that give them a richly deserved kick up the backside.

Can the commission get them to pay their taxes too? That'd be nice.